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I was moving into an old housemates place one Sunday when he showed up with a 5L bottle of oil among his regular shopping. Asked wtf he was doing with that, he replied that the oil light had come on, so he would top up the oil. Nope....let's go take a look.

Dipstick is dry and the underside of the filler cap is caked in sludge. Turns out it's been roughly 3 years and 40,000k's (aka, the entire time he's owned the car) since a service. I tell him that I'm going to go pick up my tools and that we'll get stuck into it and see what we can do, old mate says it's too much trouble, he'll get it serviced through the week. Tuesday night I get a call, the engine has seized on the inner city bypass....

He ended up paying the dollars to get a reco motor installed, but then went overseas and let the rego lapse, then it stayed in the front yard for another 18 months before he moved out. He got it towed but fuck knows if he ever did anything with it. Some people just don't grasp the concept of "how to car".

I rebuilt a 22R for a young girl in 2009ish and as I always do I wrote the service sticker for 1 month/1000km to do an oil change and make sure everything is working well. Couple months later I call a couple times and leave measages, no reply. Whatever. Never heard from her again until I get a call in 2013 from her boyfriend giung nuts. The thing hadnt been serviced since I rebuilt it 60,000km prior. I was proud it lasted that long.

Had a guy with a TJ Magna drop off his car that had no drive and a reco box with instructions to fit it to the car. Did the job only to find this one has no drive either. Turns out he "rebuilt" this box on his own. LOL.

Had a 300C SRT towed in by an insurance company with a fucked engine. The inside of the car was beyond repair. All the seats were torn and stained, it smelt like someone died in it. The guy drove through a big puddle of water and threw a rod out. Insurance co approves the repairs and I order the engine from Chrysler. A few days pass and I notice theres a bunch of rubbish (bottles, chip packets and a massive dog turd) near the car in our carpark. Didnt think too much of it, its a strange neighbourhood. Next morning I get in early and turns out the guy LIVES in the car with this TWO german shepherds. WTF. He has been coming and going from the car after hours with another key.

A chick I know (no pics) didn't like the noise the car was making, so turned up the tunes to drown out the sound......until the tire shredded its self on the freeway, forcing her to pull over.

By freeway do you mean the end of the riverside expressway at 4:30 in the arvo fucking traffic for people trying to get to Milton road? Because that sounds exactly like the dumb bitch who did that on Tuesday evening. Sitting there, staring blankly at the tyre that that had disintegrated because she'd been driving on it flat for forever?

"Where can we get hold of a Vincent Black Shadow?" "Whats that?" "A fantastic bike," I said. "The new model is something like two thousand cubic inches, developing two hundred brake-horsepower at four thousand revolutions per minute on a magnesium frame with two styrofoam seats and a total curb weight of exactly two hundred pounds."

and he refused to leave the vehicle while the work was being done. Sort of soured my experience of driving it, albeit a short distance.

Customer vehicles aren't there for you to joy ride, they're there to have work done, and the test drive is to make sure you haven't fucked anything up - How do people not fucking understand this?

"Where can we get hold of a Vincent Black Shadow?" "Whats that?" "A fantastic bike," I said. "The new model is something like two thousand cubic inches, developing two hundred brake-horsepower at four thousand revolutions per minute on a magnesium frame with two styrofoam seats and a total curb weight of exactly two hundred pounds."

"Where can we get hold of a Vincent Black Shadow?" "Whats that?" "A fantastic bike," I said. "The new model is something like two thousand cubic inches, developing two hundred brake-horsepower at four thousand revolutions per minute on a magnesium frame with two styrofoam seats and a total curb weight of exactly two hundred pounds."

Know a bloke who got a tk barina new. 7 years old or something like that now. Never once serviced it and had over 100,000k's. I saw inside the engine recently when he had to change the rocker cover gasket. It's like honey and charcoal. I'm no mechanic but I've never seen anything like it. He finally changed the oil and still continues to thrash it everyday. Pretty solid really.

I bought one new as a company car in 1994 & drove it for 4yrs & 180,000km before "selling" it to my sister.
Borrowed it off her a few years later & it had a bad high speed vibration - tyres were down to the belts.
After 10 years she had moved away & swapped it with a friend. I agreed to do the service before the swap.
In this time all she had done was brake pads, new retreads & battery, and top up the oil.
I had to use a cold chisel to remove the old filter. It had bonded itself on. Ran like new.

Second one was my son's mate. Rang up & said the "genie lamp" was on.
Came straight around to our house. Asked when he last checked the oil <blank>
Pulled the dipstick. It was black. Wiped it with a rag, still black. Took petrol to clean the baked on vanish off it.
Put a litre of whatever we had into it & told him to go to Supercheap & come back with a filter & 5L of oil.
We removed about 1.5L of tar from the sump when he returned.
Still ran faultlessly.

Last edited by awdmoke; 10-07-15 at 10:49 AM.

Lots of minis & mokes including a G13b powered Sports Sedan, a couple of Swift Gtis, a Goggomobil, Porsche 928S, Polo Gti, BMW 540i, a WRX and a few others.

Love this thread. I have a few stories, when I was in the conversion business I saw some beauties. We had a Camaro come in earlier this year that the guy had imported himself and got converted at a 'reputable' shop in Melbourne, one of the better known converters. The guy just wanted it checked over as they had instructed him to do after a few thousand k's. The conversion was rough as fuck, dash was terrible, wiring was shit, but the worst was the steering rack. In the electric rack cars (post '12) we put a billet aluminium rack in that is made in Brisbane, essentially mirror image housing made from billet with the Camaro guts installed. They are awesome, plug and play but exxy at about $7k. This car had a retro-fitted VF Commodore rack, that whilst actually fitting and steering ok on the face of it, was dodgy as fuck. We found the steering angle sensor stuffed up under the dash taped solid in the straight ahead position, so the car just thinks it's steering ahead all the time. They obviously couldn't get the rack to talk to the BCM.... They must have switched off all the warning lights or something, because it would have had no stability control operational.....Horrifying. To top it off, the car had been for a swim in the US too.

Also had a Ram come in that again had been converted at a 'reputable' Ram conversion business. The cunts had used a second hand Jeep steering box mounted in the most retarded position with right angle bevel drives to feed it (sloppy as fuck) and because it was too small for the job, it had blown the seals out and was pissing fluid everywhere. The converter pretty much told the guy to fuck off too. Nice.

I bought one new as a company car in 1994 & drove it for 4yrs & 180,000km before "selling" it to my sister.
Borrowed it off her a few years later & it had a bad high speed vibration - tyres were down to the belts.
After 10 years she had moved away & swapped it with a friend. I agreed to do the service before the swap.
In this time all she had done was brake pads, new retreads & battery, and top up the oil.
I had to use a cold chisel to remove the old filter. It had bonded itself on. Ran like new.

Second one was my son's mate. Rang up & said the "genie lamp" was on.
Came straight around to our house. Asked when he last checked the oil <blank>
Pulled the dipstick. It was black. Wiped it with a rag, still black. Took petrol to clean the baked on vanish off it.
Put a litre of whatever we had into it & told him to go to Supercheap & come back with a filter & 5L of oil.
We removed about 1.5L of tar from the sump when he returned.
Still ran faultlessly.

I also have much respect for the 2.2 camry. I actually owned 4 of them all at the same time thru the business such was the love.
We only ever replaced dead starters. With the one I drove I was always impressed with the hectic torque, used to drive it so it looked like i was driving an auto sometimes, dragging on the clutch and brake at the same time uphills with 3 of us in it. It would tow my offroader and trailer thru paddocks on idle while i got out and walked alongside.
I thought this was due to superior toyota engineering but it was just the cam belt idler was loose, i guess and early version of vvti-l (variable valve tightening - loose)

We have this customer who's been coming to us for years. Looks rough as fuck, not a square centimetre of skin without tattoos but is as nice as anything. He's a real battler, no money and always driving shitboxes. He came in to some money a while back and bought a "nice" car; an old turbo forester. Bought it cheap off a swede and it's a total shitter.
Anyway he rings us and says the clutch is rooted and books it in, he's got the clutch. It was that stuffed that we had to push it in to the shop, no drive whatsoever. I put the clutch in and take it for a test drive to find out the gearbox is completely fucked. Almost no synchro's left, and second gear is gone.
When he picks it up I mention to him that he should probably replace the box. He then tells me he has one at home but he has to save up to get it put in at another time. I felt so bad for him, he's the nicest guy and I didn't have the heart to tell him that it wouldn't have cost a cent while I was doing the clutch

We have this customer who's been coming to us for years. Looks rough as fuck, not a square centimeter of skin without tattoos but is as nice as anything. He's a real battler, no money and always driving shitboxes. He came in to some money a while back and bought a "nice" car; an old turbo forester. Bought it cheap off a swede and it's a total shitter.
Anyway he rings us and says the clutch is rooted and books it in, he's got the clutch. It was that stuffed that we had to push it in to the shop, no drive whatsoever. I put the clutch in and take it for a test drive to find out the gearbox is completely fucked. Almost no synchro's left, and second gear is gone.
When he picks it up I mention to him that he should probably replace the box. He then tells me he has one at home but he has to save up to get it put in at another time. I felt so bad for him, he's the nicest guy and I didn't have the heart to tell him that it wouldn't have cost a cent while I was doing the clutch

Money is easy come easy go with some. Odds are in his own crazy way he's happy.

Mmmmmmmmm beer.

Originally Posted by ALLMTR

You had one fucking job, Imran. One. Now look, there's Flibberty Gibbets all up in here, seeing straight through your ruse. One. Fucking. Job!

Working on taxi's while the wife of the driver sits in the front. Because the male won't let the wife out of his sight since arriving in Australia.

A corolla or something being an insurance job as the dash cluster was missing. Pretty suspect since it was just a shitty low spec corolla and the only thing that had been stolen was the dash gauge cluster, yet the inside of it was covered in cat hair. Everywhere. It stank like cats too. Part of the insurance covered repair meant she got the car back after having it cleaned. Would hate to think how long it took to vacuum all the hair out.

A callout to repair something on a Peugeot Fuego. Noted on the job card that the car had serious defects. Thing caught fire a week later.

Originally Posted by Stix Z

i'm upset i lost that video of that aboriginal woman taking a dump on a train that was on youtube

Originally Posted by Jim

Sorry, am late to this thread. I have been protesting against whitey oppressors all morning with my people. I shall serenade this thread with my didge until nash comes in and puts it all into perspective.

Had a 300C SRT towed in by an insurance company with a fucked engine. The inside of the car was beyond repair. All the seats were torn and stained, it smelt like someone died in it. The guy drove through a big puddle of water and threw a rod out. Insurance co approves the repairs and I order the engine from Chrysler. A few days pass and I notice theres a bunch of rubbish (bottles, chip packets and a massive dog turd) near the car in our carpark. Didnt think too much of it, its a strange neighbourhood. Next morning I get in early and turns out the guy LIVES in the car with this TWO german shepherds. WTF. He has been coming and going from the car after hours with another key.

hahaha i'm pretty sure i know that guy with the 300C, he's a bit weird but a nice guy with a questionable career path

I had a couple of friends staying from OS, they'd just driven across the nallabour in an older camry that hadn't had an oil change in 40,000kms... they were worried about it so we changed the oil and tidyed it up for sale - the next day the car got submerged waiting for a roadworthy (they'd cancelled the insurance as they were just about to sell it too)

when i worked in a workshop we had a Seat Toledo that no one could work out why the exhaust was making a weird rubbing noise and all the donuts were in place and in good nick - got it on the hoist and the whole car had a bend in the middle...

Customer vehicles aren't there for you to joy ride, they're there to have work done, and the test drive is to make sure you haven't fucked anything up - How do people not fucking understand this?

I agree, but in this situation I had to move it from the car park into the workshop bay. He was telling me not to hit the door of the workshop FFS, as it was once we got it into the workshop we pushed it into the bay. He was also paranoid my bare feet may have left a park on the floor of the car, through cotten sheets mind you.

We have this customer who's been coming to us for years. Looks rough as fuck, not a square centimeter of skin without tattoos but is as nice as anything. He's a real battler, no money and always driving shitboxes. He came in to some money a while back and bought a "nice" car; an old turbo forester. Bought it cheap off a swede and it's a total shitter.
Anyway he rings us and says the clutch is rooted and books it in, he's got the clutch. It was that stuffed that we had to push it in to the shop, no drive whatsoever. I put the clutch in and take it for a test drive to find out the gearbox is completely fucked. Almost no synchro's left, and second gear is gone.
When he picks it up I mention to him that he should probably replace the box. He then tells me he has one at home but he has to save up to get it put in at another time. I felt so bad for him, he's the nicest guy and I didn't have the heart to tell him that it wouldn't have cost a cent while I was doing the clutch

Might have a customer for life if you ring him up on a quiet day and give him a free gear box install..

I see all sorts of fucked dodgy stuff on a daily basis, gear that doesn't work on roads or has plant/conditional rego is essentially a free pass until something happens and workcover gets involved.
You do your best to get shit sorted or wash your hands really fucking well when brakes or steering are involved but anything else and I really couldnt give two fucks if your putting 30L of hydraulic oil into your digger a day while it pisses out everywhere or the 5L of engine oil the motor leaks a day soaks and fucks your harness. If I tell you its fucked and you dont want to fix it, your problem not mine.

Worst one was a council loader that had a serious brake fault, machine runs full hydraulic brakes with a PWM brake charging valve which charges the accumulators for the brakes;
Drove out to see the machine, about 90km from their workshop, worked out the spool was sticking in the valve and it wouldn't charge the brake circuit unless you stroked the pump with another function.
This particular machine has been flashing up with brake failure on the dash for about 4 years due to a different unrelated fault but some fucking moron told old mate not to worry so he never paid any attention to any sort of brake failure alarm on the dash - explain that one to the magistrate when someone gets killed.

Anyway, told old mate that his machine is essentially a 10t missile and your really shouldn't be driving it anywhere let alone on public roads.
Old mate was determined to make it home so he did...

Same machine ran out of brakes about a year later, wet brakes, discs were down to the metal, he didnt think anything was wrong and that the brake indicators on the hubs were fucked.
He drove it for another two weeks like that, ended up needing a rear diff rebuild from all the metal that went through it.

had a woman ring up just after i'd (permanently) closed my shop. ranting and raving and carrying on about how her d22 nav had shit the engine, and i was going to have to pay for the repairs. said the guy who looked at it reckoned i'd put the wrong oil in. checked when i'd serviced it last, then rang him. 28,000k's it'd done since. rang her back and politely told her to bash it up her arse.

or some abos with a vp. came in for rego with the panhard rod mount broken off the body and wired back on. wanted to fight when i wouldn't pass it.

Originally Posted by Skompa

The throttle linkages jammed on the CDs in my old Triumph 2000 and stuck it at WOT.

I sold an EL to my brother with 280k kms on it, which had the typical rear main leak thus requiring a top of oil every couple of thou kms.
He never checked the oil level or topped it up, and the times I thought to check it rarely had anything on the dipstick. Quite often you'd throw 3+ litres into
He drove it for five years and I think I actually changed the oil once in it?